– in the Scottish Parliament at on 20 March 2024.
Richard Leonard
Labour
8. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to support public interest journalism. (S6O-03223)
Kaukab Stewart
Scottish National Party
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that we have a free and democratic press. We believe that public interest journalism plays an important role in our society at all levels, including holding governments and other organisations to account.
Following the establishment of the public interest journalism working group, we convened a round table, at which a steering group was formed to deliver an independent Scottish public interest journalism institute. Implementation is for sector representatives. However, we will continue to engage with the industry to hear about its on-going work while respecting the independence of the institute and its work.
Richard Leonard
Labour
Public interest journalism is all too often being silenced by rich corporations and wealthy individuals using strategic lawsuits against public participation. The Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021 does not tackle that; it applies only to lawsuits that are lodged on the ground of defamation. Will the Minister work with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to introduce a stand-alone anti-SLAPP—strategic lawsuit against public participation—bill to Parliament to let public interest reporting and investigative journalism flourish?
Kaukab Stewart
Scottish National Party
I am happy to explore that option with the member. He should get in touch and we can talk about it further.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
